Among the millions of apps being released hourly in the App store, there truly are apps worth buying, and those that not worth wasting a glance at. iShoot ($2.99) is one of the best and brightest among its craptastic peers. One of many turn based tank fighting games, iShoot has proved its worthiness by sky rocketing into the #1 spot almost overnight, with his iShoot lite following close behind with the #1 spot in free apps. Creator Ethan Nicholas has recently enjoyed so much success from iShoot that he quit his day job in order to further his app-development career. → Read More
Cubic Telecom, the TechCrunch40 company behind the traveler-friendly SIM card MAXroam, has partnered with Dopplr to sell the card through its online store. The Dopplr-branded SIM card will be available for a reduced rate of €45 (down five euro from its normal price).
Both companies have a strong travel focus: Cubic Telecom’s MAXroam allows users to use their unlocked cell phones in over 180 countries, saving around 60-80% on roaming charges. Dopplr offers a social network for travelers looking to meet up with their friends. The site will use your travel schedule to determine when you’ll be in the same area as a friend, and then help you set up a get-together. → Read More
Best Buy is ready to take orders for the Palm Treo Pro for those not willing to wait for the Sprint-subsidized model. It’s going to take a special (read: loaded) gadget freak to plop down seven large on a WinMob phone that’s backordered until the middle of February which is when the phone is rumored to launch on Sprint anyway → Read More
Heads up, freaks. There’s a trojan inside a certain Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Mac crack generator that’s spreading around. (Type “photoshop cs4 mac crack” in The PirateBay for the offending file.) It’s a variant of a trojan that was first discovered last week, so that means this trojan is getting around. → Read More
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight’s executive producer Michael Uslan has just signed on for the next installment in what we’re all hoping is Nolan’s third Batman flick. Ulsan expects the new movie to hit theaters in 2011. → Read More
How many times can you tease Sony about the state of the PS3 before you become bored? The news that Bethesda won’t be developing DLC for the PS3 version of Fallout 3 has prompted me to ask this Very Important question. → Read More
The almost-impossible-to-find Wii Fit is in stock at Amazon right now for $89.99 with free shipping. I checked earlier today and it was out of stock, so they must have just gotten some. → Read More
Oh man, this guy totally read my mind. Although I shoot with a Rebel XSi so I don’t have to deal with this stuff on a regular basis, point and shoots are full of useless and/or legacy features that really ought to go. This list over at Photography Bay gets it right, and I’ve got a couple of my own. → Read More
Perhaps it’s because I’m stuck in a Munich hotel with the flu, but this most recent round of rumors about Steve Jobs undergoing surgery today is annoying me more than normal. The entire report is based on something someone heard someone else say at a party. That kind of stuff is fine when it’s a funding rumor and the flimsiness of it is disclosed. But we’re talking about someone’s very personal life here – someone who has repeatedly requested privacy. The fact that CNET, taking a few moments away from their Pulitzer Prize winning effort to determine the most hated person on the Internet, jumped on this so eagerly is particularly disappointing.
Our own source, who is significantly more believable than some person at some party, says Jobs is in the office today in meetings and most definitely not undergoing surgery. Does that mean he might go under the knife tomorrow instead? Do we really need to know?
Let Steve Jobs do his job and live his life. Just because you can write a story doesn’t mean you have to. → Read More
Buying a plasma TV can be so frustrating. First, you as the informed consumer, know that plamsa TVs generally produce a superior picture verse LCDs but sometimes TV salesmen don’t agree. That being said, this guy managed to buy a plasma from Sears and turned down the $300 three-year service plan only to have the company call him a few days later to pitch the plan again. This time though, the rep ‘informed’ the buyer that plasma TV’s suck (or something like that) and need to be ‘recharged’ every five years at a cost of $500 so the $300 service plan is well justified. Thankfully, the customer turned down the service plan ’cause plasma TVs do not need recharging. → Read More
Best Buy is ready to take orders for the Palm Treo Pro for those not willing to wait for the Sprint-subsidized model. It’s going to take a special (read: loaded) gadget freak to plop down seven large on a WinMob phone that’s backordered until the middle of February which is when the phone is rumored to launch on Sprint anyway. Granted, that person might be purchasing the phone outside of contract and will have to spend that much anyway. If that’s the case, the Palm Treo Pro seems to be available for immediate in-store pickup at most locations. Run, Palm fanboy, run! Best Buy via AOL → Read More
Netbook manufacturers, I beg of you: please focus on increasing screen resolution before adding any more features. This 1024×600 business has gone on long enough. → Read More
While Internet slang and abbreviations have become second nature for some technophiles, many of us have trouble converting our words into the pseudo-gibberish sometimes required to make long messages fit into the 140 character limit set by Twitter. 140it, a new service put together over the weekend by the guys behind Yipit, is looking to help. The site will instantly convert whole sentences into condensed text, making common substitutions (like ‘r’ instead of ‘are’), using bit.ly to shorten links, and swapping company names for their StockTwits symbol. → Read More
<img src="http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/whitezombie2.jpg"?Everyone knows that the Tesla Roadster is a quick car and can beat most Porsche’s down the quarter mile. That $100k+ ride doesn’t have anything on this Datsun powered by lightweight lithium ion batteries dubbed White Zombie. This little guy can scoot down the strip in under 11.5 seconds at a speed of 114mph sounding beating the Tesla’s advertised quarter mile time of 12.75 @ 104.74. According to peeps in the know, that makes this electric car the 2nd quickest electric street legal car. Bets on this car vs the recently announced Shelby Ultimate Aero EV electric supercar? My money is on the Nissan. → Read More
Any frequent user of public transportation has probably seen it: Cute girl gets on the train/subway in a skirt that’s just a little bit too short. Within minutes, some creepy guy starts pretending to “play a game” on his cell phone, oblivious to the fact that his narrow squint and carefully positioned arms flag his voyeuristic image snapping intentions immediately. A new bill has just been introduced to Congress, purposed with combating these on-the-go invasions of privacy. Called the “Camera Phone Predator Alert Act“, it would require all camera phones to make an audible and unsilenceable shutter noise. Similar laws are already in place in South Korea and Japan, so many manufacturers are already accustomed to such regulations. [Via Phonescoop] → Read More
The Mozilla Foundation is putting its weight behind an effort to create an open video format on the Web. It is doing this by giving $100,000 in grant money, to be administered by the Wikimedia Foundation, towards the development and support of Theora, an open-source video codec. More importantly, it is also building support into the Firefox Web browser for both Theora and Vorbis, an open source audio codec.
Many other video codecs and encoders require licensing fees or come with restrictions. Mozilla hopes to chang ethis over time. Although I suspect the Theora video codec is inferior to other technologies, as long as it can improve over time, it could eventually become a serious contender to MPEG-4 or Windows Media Video (WMV).
Evangelist Christopher Blizzard explains why Mozilla is backing open video in a long and windy post: → Read More
We all know the benefits of OLED and seen the figures on how much energy it saves and all that jazz, but do you know how it actually works? Well, you’re in for a treat, friend. Sit back, relax and enjoy this 4.5 minute video. The next time anyone asks what OLED is just direct them to this video. It breaks it down pretty well. It’s a shame they aren’t ready for the masses, though. → Read More
I’m not going to lie to you. I raised an eyebrow at this when I heard about it, but now I see that a headphone rack on your case would actually be quite handy. The only impractical thing about this particular one is that it only fits on HP’s Blackbird. That’s one way to limit your market; the Blackbird doesn’t appear to be on sale any more, and HP invites you to call a phone number to “learn more.” → Read More
Though you may not have noticed, we’ve been trying to avoid writing about pink phones around here. Not because we have anything against them (and we know you love them, ladies), but there are just so damn many of them as of late. “X company is releasing Y phone again.. but in pink!” Now, figure out how to make that into 2 paragraphs – then do it 10 more times in a month. But when someone pushes a pink device with hopes of fighting cancer, we’ll break our unspoken moratorium because, well, cancer sucks. → Read More
German mind mapping application builder MeisterLabs, the startup behind brainstorm & planning tool MindMeister, has acquired MindMaker, to our knowledge the third iPhone application to get sold after the sale of Where To and Tapulous buying Tweetsville.
MindMaker, on sale for €3.99 (or $4.99), allows you to structure your ideas and concepts visually using a fairly intuitive program even when you’re on the go. The app is relatively limited in functionality but offers an experience that suits Apple’s mobile phone perfectly. You can find a good review of the app over here. → Read More
